Tennessee Rep Marsha Blackburn joins call for Georgetown students to fight for unborn babies
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) and three pro-life leaders spoke at Georgetown University ahead of Planned Parenthood CEO Cecile Richards’ scheduled talk at the Catholic university.
Blackburn spoke to about 50 students about the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives in the U.S. House of Representatives, which she chairs, and the power of sonograms to show the humanity of babies in the womb.
“With 3D sonograms, it is amazing,” Blackburn said. “You can see detail. And you know what a child’s features are going to be, especially if you know the parents or grandparents. And you actually watch that baby grow and develop. A picture is worth a thousand words, and in this arena…it certainly is.”
photo: 14 week fetus photo/ Your Pregnancy week by week
“Science has settled this issue for us,” Blackburn continued.
“It is a child, with moving arms and legs. They get hiccups, turn around…and you know it’s an unborn baby. And then that baby arrives. And the celebration begins. We have protected that life all the way through that pregnancy and then again on arrival we protect that life.”
A panel of pro-life medical experts discussed life-affirming alternatives to Planned Parenthood: Dr. Jeanne Lord, Georgetown’s Dean of Students, moderated the panel, which featured Astrid Bennett Gutierrez, the Executive Director of Los Angeles Pregnancy Services and President and Co-Founder of the VIDA Initiative; Kathleen Eaton Bravo, the Founder and CEO of Obria Medical Clinics; and Marguerite Duane, MD, MHA, FAAFP of Georgetown Medical School, who is also the Co-Founder and Executive Director of Fertility Appreciation Collaborative to Teach the Science (FACTS).
baby hand holding finger photo/ Michael Jarmaluk via pixabay.com
Gutierrez volunteered for Planned Parenthood during college but lost interest when she realized the organization didn’t share her values, she explained, detailing how she became involved in pro-life work.
“There is a paradox in the Hispanic community in that we are very instinctively pro-life,” Gutierrez said. “But at the same time, abortion is being sold to us. We are targeted by the abortion industry.”
Bravo told the students about her experience undergoing an abortion as a single mother.
“If this is so right, why is this the most horrible, terrible experience I’ve ever been through, and what have I done?” she said that she asked herself.
Bravo now runs a network of fully licensed pro-life healthcare centers in California.
All three women stressed the importance of providing holistic healthcare to women, which the abortion industry and particularly Planned Parenthood does not.
“I believe we should be teaching all people…about the way their bodies are designed to function,” said Duane. Pushing hormonal birth control on women sends the message “that they’re broken from the beginning of puberty,” she said.
President of Georgetown Right to Life Michael Khan told LifeSiteNews.
The goal of the pro-life movement is “babies saved and women served,” said Khan.
Khan criticized Georgetown for allowing Richards to speak on campus. “I’m disappointed in Georgetown for allowing the Cecile Richards event to take place, particularly her speaking unchallenged on campus hosted by a recognized student group…It sends the wrong message not only to our students but to the wider community,” he said.
Khan said Georgetown Right to Life is one of the most active clubs on campus.
“The students are really leading this fight, and that’s what I take joy in every day,” he said.
“We need to have more support from Georgetown administrators and our institution, like other Catholic institutions” such as Notre Dame, which has a pro-life office on campus, he said.
“As the oldest Catholic school in the country, the oldest Jesuit school, in many ways the most prestigious, we all have an obligation to lead on this issue,” Khan said.
